Author's Note: Welcome to chapter 3. Do enjoy! As always, feedback is appreciated.

III: Spark III

The dragon charges. The earth trembles beneath his steps, the molten wreckage of Brockton Bay groaning under his impossible weight. With each passing second, he grows, his form stretching upward, expanding, feeding on the fire, the destruction, the ruin. His wings spread wide, blotting out what remains of the sky, his golden eyes burning with rage and purpose.

He is coming for me. I watch him. I do not move. There is no need.

Lung, warlord of the ABB, slayer of heroes, dragon-thing that has ruled this city for years—he is nothing to me now. I exhale.

The flames that hang in the air around me contract, a quiet, suffocating pull inward, a gravity of heat and power that bends space itself. Lung's roar is drowned out as the fire implodes. White-hot and soundless, a singularity of destruction, contained only for an instant before it erupts.

The explosion does not deafen. It does not boom. It simply erases. Lung does not scream. He does not have time to. One moment, he is there. The next he is not.

The ground where he stood is a yawning chasm that extends into the crust for miles, still glowing white, still too hot to look at directly. There is no body. No bones. No trace.

I stare at the empty space, at the ruin that used to be a living thing. This was supposed to be a battle. But I have long since passed the point where fights are fights.

The world is silent. The sky is dead.

The remains of the city smolder beneath me, its ruins swallowed in the afterglow of my fire. I hover above the devastation, watching the embers drift like dying stars, the wind carrying nothing but the scent of charred stone and melted steel.

I did this. I know I did this. But for the first time, the fire inside me is quiet.

Lung's ashes still swirl in the updraft. His end was not a battle, not a struggle—it was instantaneous. A single thought, and he was gone.

I stare at the ground where he last stood, my hands still trembling, the heat still clinging to my skin like an afterthought. What was the point?

There was no fight. No purpose. Just destruction. Just loss. Then, movement. A whisper of pain in the silence. A mind, flickering. I turn.

Armsmaster lies among the ruins, broken, his armor shattered, blood pooling beneath him. He's still alive. Barely.

For a moment, I just watch him. I see the way his breath hitches, the way his mind teeters on the edge of silence. The fire inside me stirs, whispering, telling me it would be easier if I let him die. If I let all of them die.

I ignore it. I descend slowly, my feet touching the molten ground without a sound. His injuries are severe—ribs crushed, cervical spine injury, bilateral hemopneumothorax, displaced skull fractures, cerebral hemorrhages, lacerated abdominal organs, perforated bowel, impending cardiac tamponade… the list goes on.

I reach out. My fire is not just destruction. It is energy. It is life. The embers licking at my fingertips shift, curling inward, softening as I press my hand to his chest. His armor melts away, the metal peeling back like paper, and I focus.

I breathe in. The fire flows into him, an impenetrable cocoon enveloping his dying body. Knitting. Mending. Rebuilding. His body spasms, and for an instant, I see inside him—not just his injuries, but his mind. I see fear. I see failure.

I see the memory of this very morning again. His conversation with Sophia Hess, her dismissive sneer, his rising suspicion. The incident report. The moment he realized something terrible had happened. I see the moment he saw me. The drone feed from Winslow. The crater. The knowledge that he was too late. I pull away.

Armsmaster coughs, sucking in a deep, shuddering breath, his eyes flying open. His gaze locks onto me. I don't know what he sees.

Maybe a monster. Maybe something worse. I step back. My voice is hoarse, quiet, the words tasting foreign on my tongue.

"I'm sorry."

I don't wait for a response. I turn. And that's when I feel them. Power. Not the weak, flickering sparks of the Protectorate's leader. Not the ants I crushed beneath my heel.

This is something else. Something greater. Three minds, distinct but overwhelming. Each burning in their own way. I lift my head, and there they are: the Triumvirate. Alexandria. Legend.Eidolon. The strongest heroes on the planet.

They hover above the ruins, watching me. Judging me. Their presence presses against me, their power a wall of expectation, of control, of challenge. They hover before me, eyes locked onto mine, their faces unreadable.

For the first time since my awakening, I feel something like hesitation. They are not afraid. Not like the others. Legend is the first to speak. His voice is a sonorous song, a hymn of calm, measured authority.

"Taylor Hebert?"

I say nothing. I don't need to. They know who I am.

Alexandria crosses her arms, her gaze sharp, searching. Calculating. "We need to talk."

I almost laugh. She thinks this is a conversation. Eidolon watches me closely, his expression neutral, but his mind—his mind is a storm. He is cycling through powers, shifting, testing, searching for something,anythingthat might work against me.

He finds nothing. I tilt my head, watching him, letting him know that I see.

"You're afraid," I say softly. "It won't work."

Eidolon's expression doesn't change, but I feel the flicker of uncertainty beneath the surface. Legend steps forward, walking on air as though it was solid matter. His body glows faintly, the air around him shimmering with suppressed energy.

"We don't want to fight you," he says.

I raise an eyebrow. "Then why are you here?"

Alexandria's jaw tightens. "Because you killed Lung. Because you destroyed Brockton Bay. Because you killed half a million people. Because you are an extinction-level threat, and the world needs to know if you can be stopped."

There it is. It is not diplomacy. It is not concern. This is a test. I glance at Eidolon. His fingers twitch at his sides, his power still shifting, his mind still grasping for an answer.

"You don't think you can stop me."

It isn't a question.

Eidolon exhales slowly. His voice is a basso profundo, a rumble of tectonic plates shifting. The gravitas in his question is all the more startling for it. "Can we?"

I hold his gaze. And then, for the first time since this all began, I let my power truly unfurl. The world stops breathing. The flames ripple outward, a wave of heat that scorches the sky, turning the air into fire. The scant remaining clouds above us ignite, spreading like ink in water, the atmosphere itself bending to my will.

The Triumvirate tenses. For the first time, they feel it. What I am. What I have become. What I could do to them.

The fire inside me whispers. It tells me to burn them to ash. To end this. But I hesitate. A memory flickers at the edge of my mind—Armsmaster, gasping for breath. His eyes locking onto mine.

I had told him I'm sorry.

A part of me had meant it. I look at them now, these so-called heroes, standing before me with their unreadable expressions, their power coiled and waiting. They are not here to save me. They are here to see if I can be killed. I close my eyes. And then I smile.

"No," I whisper.

Alexandria narrows her eyes. "No?"

I open my eyes again, and the flames roar.

"You can't stop me."

My declaration is not spoken. It is not shouted. It is a whisper of thought that lances into their minds like a sword.

Alexandria flinches, her mind shuddering in abject terror.Telepath!Her thoughts scream.Simurgh!

Then she moves. She moves with purpose, a human missile streaking toward me, faster than any bullet, her fist raised.

I meet her head-on. We collide. The shockwave flattens the burnt plains of the city beneath us.

She strikes, her movements blindingly fast, her blows meant to stagger even the strongest of foes. But I don't stagger. I don't even feel it. Her fists hammer against me, each strike carrying the force to shatter a continent. I barely register them. It is a gnat fighting a giant.

Then I grab her wrist. Her assault stops. She struggles, twisting, trying to break free. I squeeze. I feel the stress in her bones, her supposedly indestructible frame straining beneath my grip.

She grits her teeth. I see the moment she realizes that she can't overpower me. I pull.

She vanishes in a golden blur. A shape streaks across the sky, a comet of flesh and power, hurtling beyond the horizon. A thunderclap of sound follows as she shatters the sound barrier, going hypersonic in an instant from the throw.

Alexandria is gone. She won't be coming back anytime soon.

Eidolon reacts instantly. A wave of distortion ripples outward, gravity bending as he unleashes something vast, something terrifying—a power that should be impossible.

The air warps. Eidolon floats high above the battlefield, his tattered cloak billowing in the heated winds that spiral around him. His face is set in grim determination as his power shifts, adapting, pulling from the abyss of possibilities within him. He has wielded countless abilities in his time, but even he knows—

This will have to be his greatest feat. The space around him darkens. A void blooms into existence, a well of infinite gravity forming in the sky, pulling at the very fabric of the world. It begins as a pinprick of absence, swallowing the light around it, growing rapidly as the air bends and screams in protest.

A black hole. A force of destruction so absolute that even time falters at its event horizon. The sky itself buckles. Winds howl as the gravitational pull intensifies, the very bones of the city creaking beneath its invisible grasp. Buildings groan, steel beams twisting and crumpling like paper, whole structures lifted from the earth as the singularity devours everything in its path.

Flames that once consumed the city are now devoured in turn, spiraling inward, drawn into the collapsing abyss. The inferno folds, distorting in shape as it is dragged into the crushing void, its once all-consuming hunger reduced to nothing more than fuel for the abyss.

And yet, I do not move. I don't flinch. I don't react in fear. I simply watch. And then I raise my hand.

With a single motion, I close my fingers into a fist. The black hole collapses. Not from its own gravity. Not from any scientific principle Eidolon understands.

It simply ceases to exist. Snuffed out like a candle before it can even consume me.

Eidolon freezes.Impossible!His thoughts scream.

No power he has ever faced, no force he has ever wielded, should be capable of negating something of that magnitude. The sheer force it should have taken to counteract a singularity—

It should have been beyond comprehension. Yet I had undone it with a mere gesture.

His trump card. His best move. And it doesn't work. His breath catches in his throat. He takes a step back. I stare at Eidolon. The greatest hero in the world stares back, thoughts racing. I meet his eyes, a predator staring down prey.

He freezes. The confidence in his eyes fractures, giving way to something I've seen before. Doubt. He doesn't have time to process it. I move. Faster than thought, faster than reaction.

I slam into him, fingers closing around his throat like a vice. His body crumples under the force of my momentum. The wind screams as I drive him downward, his limbs flailing, his aura flickering with panicked shifts of power.

It doesn't matter. Nothing he does matters. The ground rises to meet him.

A thunderous crack splits the air as he crashes into the shattered ruins below. The earth buckles. A crater blossoms where he lands, dust and debris surging outward in waves. His body lies still at the center.

I stare down at Eidolon, conflicting emotions warring within me. I hear the hum of energy before I even turn to face him. Legend floats above me, his body burning with light, his eyes sharp with focus. I can feel the tension radiating off him. He's afraid. But he's still fighting. The air around him shimmers.

Thousands of beams form in an instant, light bending at his command, converging into a storm of destruction. Then he fires. A coruscating kaleidoscope, a veritable deluge of power crashes down upon me.

The world disappears in radiance. The ground beneath us melts, reduced to slag under the heat. The sheer force of his attack ripples through the sky, breaking apart the clouds, sending shockwaves across the atmosphere.

The world is swallowed in his light. And when it fades, I'm still standing.

Unharmed. Unfazed. Not even warm. Legend stares, his expression frozen in something between awe and despair.

I tilt my head. I raise a hand. And I return the favor. His own power flows through me. I take what he used against me, reshape it, and fire it back at him.

His own beams lash out, slamming into him with blinding force. His body spirals out of control, light bending and flickering wildly around him as he's flung from the battlefield, a streak of radiance crashing into the sea.

The battle is over. They lost. And I… I feel nothing. Eidolon stirs, pulling himself from the crater. He looks up at me and stills. He knows I could kill him in an instant. I could end him. But I don't. Instead, I look into his mind. And I see.

The room is buried deep beneath the earth, in a place that does not officially exist. The walls are seamless, sterile, built with no thought for comfort—only function. A faint hum permeates the air, the sound of unseen machines working tirelessly to keep this hidden facility operational.

At the center of the room, a single circular table gleams under harsh white lights. Around it, some of the most powerful and influential figures in the world sit in silence, watching the disaster unfold on a wall-sized screen.

Brockton Bay is burning.

The drone footage is shaky, struggling against the sheer heat distortion radiating from the city. The skyline is unrecognizable—where once stood buildings and roads, there are only molten scars and flames that will never die. Smoke churns upwards, drawn into the superheated air, twisting into unnatural patterns as reality itself bends.

At the heart of it all, Taylor Hebert hovers above the ruins, wreathed in light, her body casting two shadows—one normal, the other flickering and wrong, stretching in directions that should not exist.

They had gathered in response to her trigger event. But now—now, they are too late.

They are not discussing containment. They are not even discussing defeat. They are discussing survival.

Doctor Mother sits at the head of the table, her white lab coat still immaculate, untouched by the gravity of the disaster she is analyzing. Her expression remains impassive, her cold gaze reflecting the flames on the screen. She does not fidget, does not betray emotion. She does not indulge in fear.

Because fear is useless.

Beside her, Contessa stands with her arms crossed, posture impeccable. She watches the destruction without reaction, dark eyes absorbing everything. There is something unnerving about her stillness, about the way her expression never shifts, as if she is already somewhere else.

Across from them, Number Man adjusts his cufflinks, his sharp features unreadable. He has already run the numbers. Every possible scenario. The probabilities are abysmal. He does not need to speak to know what they already suspect.

The odds of containing Taylor Hebert? Zero.

Further down the table, Alexandria sits rigid, her fingers steepled in front of her mouth. Unlike the others, she does not mask her unease completely. Her breathing is slow, controlled—but there is a tension in her shoulders, a sharpness in her stare that betrays thoughts running at a hundred miles per hour.

She has faced Behemoth in open combat. She has survived Leviathan's wrath. She has gone toe to toe with the Simurgh, felt the razor-edged whispers of its influence, and still walked away with her mind intact.

And yet. Yet, she feels something now that she has not felt in years. She feels something she has not felt since the Siberian tore Hero in twain. Doubt. Fear. Because this is not an Endbringer. This is something worse.

At her side, Eidolon stares at the screen, his face lined with exhaustion. The destruction plays out in real-time, an entire district erased in an instant, and for the first time in his career, he feels small. His powers have always been enough—always adjusted to the threats he faced.

But watching this girl, this entity, tear through Brockton Bay like a god lashing out at the world? He does not know if he is enough.

Then there is Legend. He does not speak. His hands are clenched into fists on the table, knuckles white. Unlike the others, he does not hide his horror.

Because he sees past the destruction. He sees people. The civilians caught in the inferno. The heroes who tried to hold the line and were snuffed out like candles in a storm.

This isn't just a fight. This isn't just a crisis. This is the end.

The footage flickers, a drone attempting to pull back before its circuits melt. The screen glitches for a moment before refocusing, locking onto the epicenter.

Taylor Hebert floats there, eyes like twin suns, her expression blank—no, not blank. Lost. Something in her flickers, her fingers twitching as she hesitates. Then, the flames spiral outward once more, consuming even more of the city, and that moment of hesitation is gone.

"She was meant to be a second trigger," Doctor Mother says, her voice cold. Analytical. "Instead, she has become something else."

"She wasn't," Contessa corrects. "She was meant to be dead."

Alexandria's jaw tightens. "And yet, she's here."

Eidolon exhales slowly. "We need to act." His voice is low, urgent. "Now. If we wait—"

"We are already too late," Contessa states.

Legend looks at her sharply. "You saw this?"

Contessa does not answer immediately. Instead, she tilts her head slightly, considering something unseen. Then, at last, she says, "No."

A ripple of tension moves through the room. Doctor Mother watches her carefully. "Path to victory?"

Contessa remains silent. For the first time since her power manifested, she does not see the way forward. There is no path. The realization settles over the room like a weight.

Doctor Mother does not sigh. She does not falter. She only adjusts her posture slightly, as if shifting to accommodate the new reality.

"Then the only question left is whether she can be controlled."

The words cut through the silence. Alexandria exhales through her nose, shaking her head. She closes her eyes briefly before opening them again, steel returning to her gaze.

"This is beyond anything we've encountered. She's not just a threat to the city. If she keeps escalating—"

"She will," Number Man interjects, voice smooth as ever. "There is no scenario where she doesn't."

"And if she can't?"

Doctor Mother does not hesitate. "Then she must be eliminated."

The words land heavy, final.

But before any of them can respond, before they can even begin to form a plan, the screen flickers violently.

A new shockwave ripples across the city, powerful enough to shake the drone feeds, sending static across their displays. The temperature readings spike.

And then, there is a flash. Brighter than the sun. And another district vanishes.

Number Man tightens his grip on the table. Alexandria rises to her feet. Legend's expression darkens, his body already tensing.

But Eidolon… Eidolon just watches. And for the first time in his life, he wonders if there is any fight left to win.

I breathe, slow and steady, and the last lingering flames curling around me flicker out. And for the first time since I woke in the wreckage of Winslow, since my world became fire and hunger, I feel—

Empty.

I look around at the city. Or what's left of it.

The air is still heavy with smoke, with the acrid stench of melted steel and charred stone. The skyline is unrecognizable, reduced to shattered stumps and collapsed ruins. The streets are nothing but rivers of cooling magma, asphalt cracked apart by the sheer force of what I have done.

I listen. I wait for the screams, the panicked cries, the distant sirens of emergency response teams scrambling to contain the uncontainable.

There is nothing. Nothing.

A heavy weight settles in my chest, something cold and ugly and crushing. I did this. Not the people who locked me in that locker. Not Sophia. Not the PRT. Not the Protectorate.

Me.

I stare at my hands, at the faint glow that still lingers beneath my skin, and I feel sick.

Eidolon floats up to meet me, body thrumming with power. "Taylor, please. Let's end this."

The strongest hero in the world, the man whose very name evokes unlimited power, pleads.Eidolon pleads.

This was never supposed to happen. I was never supposed to become this. I need to go. I need to leave.

The thought is a compulsion, an instinct I don't fully understand, but I don't resist it. I just rise. The molten air bends around me as I ascend, higher and higher, past the ruins, past the smoke-choked clouds, past the very last traces of the city I used to call home.

I don't stop.

Even as the air grows thin, even as I pass the upper atmosphere, even as the pull of Earth's gravity weakens and the endless black of space stretches out before me—

I don't stop. I can't. I don't know how long I fly. Minutes. Hours. Days. Time means nothing in the void. But I know I am leaving.

Not just Brockton Bay. Not just Earth. Everything.

The sun shrinks behind me. The solar system fades. I am past the planets, past the asteroids, past anything that might have still connected me to humanity. And still, I keep going.